Boyan Sees the Difference Between Playing and Making!

Eight-year-old Boyan played video games long before he started making them – now that he’s creating them, he’s seeing all the possibilities that come with being a maker! In his words, “When you make a game there are a lot of possibilities, but when you play it you’re limited.”

Boyan, a 2nd grader from California, spends his free time drawing (he loves drawing his own characters in Tynker!) or practicing for an international math competition. In fact, he ranked 2nd in California and 6th in the US for his grade last year! We’ve been really impressed with Boyan’s projects and had a great time getting to know him a bit.

What do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be an architect.

What’s your favorite subject in school? Art!

How did you feel when you found out your project had been featured? I felt good!

How did you get introduced to Tynker? I was going through the app store and I found it! I already used other coding apps, so I knew how to use it.

How do you get inspiration for your projects? I usually just think up stuff while I’m playing – I just think of ideas for Tynker.  

“Tynker city”  

How do creativity and coding fit together for you? I like making the character see the world from above.

Why do you like to code? Because I like making my own games. When you make a game there are a lot of possibilities, but when you play it you’re limited.

What is your favorite project you’ve made so far? There’s one that I haven’t published yet. It’s a platformer taken from Tynker, but I upgraded it by being able to zoom in the direction you’re pointing. You’ll also be able to walk freely around in it, without auto-scrolling. It’s called Tynker City.

What are you planning to make next? I’m planning on making some more games with the knight character I put in the platformer game I made!

“Mario’s Adventure!”

What do you do with a project when you’re done with it? I play it and see how good it is, then publish it. Sometimes when there are bugs, sometimes they actually turn out to be pretty cool. In the platformer there is a bug where if you press jump once and then quickly hold it, you can do a ground pound!

What’s your favorite feature in Tynker? Probably being able to draw characters.

Do you ever Tynker with your friends? It’s mostly something I do by myself! If I need help making them, my dad and I usually make them together.

Do you look at the Tynker community projects? Yes, some of them are really creative!

How do you think learning coding now might help you in the future? If I make games in the future, or for working.

Do you think other kids should try coding? Yes, because it’s really fun!

What advice would you give to kids starting out with Tynker? Play most of the arcade games in Tynker – that helps you! I finished most of them – I did the Minecraft stuff – I just didn’t beat all of them because they involve other stuff.

Of Boyan’s coding hobby, his mom Savina said, “I love it! I’m glad that he enjoys it.” Boyan’s father is a video game programmer, so “it’s sort of in his genes!”

Savina made a great point about the value of the Tynker community. “The nice thing about Tynker is that he likes other people’s projects, and then he can actually open them and see what code they used to generate what he liked about the project. Then he can borrow the same approach for his project, and by repeating it, better learn how it works.”

When asked what skills learning to code helps kids develop, she said, “The main thing is logic, because you can use so many different languages these days and types of syntax. What helps you adapt to the different languages is the logic and the efficient coding that you learn.”

Boyan told Savina that he didn’t know about the “or” conditional block so he had a lot of “if” statements, and now he can create code in an “or” statement! It’s great to hear that Boyan is learning to write more efficient code. Savina agrees, saying, “It’s the logical thinking, the flexibility, the efficiency, the creativity – which is part of how you make the code efficient.”

Our favorite quote from Boyan’s mom? “I think these days, [coding] should be a mandatory course in school, because without coding you won’t be able to do much in the future.”

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves! Thank you, Boyan and Savina. It was great to chat with you, and we can’t wait to see Tynker City and everything else you come up with next, Boyan! Keep coding!